The Art of Receiving

Ginger Shots, Hot Toddies, and What a Mountain Getaway Taught Me About Letting Myself Be Cared For

By Rachel Y. Hill, DNP, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC, AHN-BC, HWNC-BC

I have spent most of my life on the giving end of care.

I'm the one who shows up with the soup, who googles the remedy, who keeps a jar of something homemade ready before anyone even asks.

Receiving has never come as naturally to me.

I'm better at pouring than at being poured into.

So when I got sick on a mountain getaway last week, surrounded by people I love, I didn't expect the real lesson of the weekend to be about receiving.

But it was.

This is a story about ginger shots and hot toddies, yes.

It's really a story about what happens when you finally let yourself be on the other side of care.

A Mountain Getaway and an Unexpected Lesson

I went to my grandbaby's birthday party last week, and I was so excited.

Not just for the birthday itself, but for the chance to catch up with my son, my daughter-in-law, and my daughter-in-law's family.

We had an Airbnb up in the mountains, and I was practically vibrating with excitement to get away.

We got in Wednesday night.

I managed a few bites of my In-N-Out burger—priorities—though I didn't get to see the little ones just yet, since they were already asleep by the time we arrived.

Thursday, on the way up to the mountains, I started feeling a bit queasy.

Altitude sickness, maybe.

I've had a pretty rough go with that before, so I did my best to stay ahead of it with hydration and told myself it was manageable.

That evening, once we were settled in, my daughter-in-law made me a vegan German chocolate cake.

Because she knows I love me some German chocolate.

There is something about being handed a homemade cake made specifically because someone remembers what you love that just settles something in your chest.

The first small lesson of the weekend in letting myself receive something I hadn't asked for.

The Birthday, the Burgers, and the Sauce That Changed Everything

Friday was the big day—my grandbaby's actual birthday festivities, right there at the Airbnb.

My son made some genuinely amazing Omaha Steak burgers.

And his sister-in-law, Destiny, made a burger sauce so good I vowed, right there on the spot, to never eat another burger without her recipe again.

I mean that as seriously as I've ever meant anything about condiments.

That woman changed my relationship to a burger permanently.

Yes, that's two burger days in a row—In-N-Out on Wednesday, Omaha Steak burgers on Friday.

I'm not sorry about it.

Some people carb-load.

I apparently burger-load, and I regret nothing.

I had also dragged three dozen homemade monster chocolate chip cookies up the mountain with me.

Because apparently I wasn't content to just show up.

I had to show up with dessert for a small army.

They seemed to be a big hit too, which I'll take as proof that even a body quietly incubating a mystery bug can still bake a respectable cookie.

A Hot Toddy Made With Care

Whatever had been quietly building in me since the altitude and the queasy drive up didn't fully show itself yet.

I got to be present for the party.

The cake.

The burgers.

Destiny's sauce.

All of it.

That evening, though, Jimmy—my daughter-in-law's brother—had gone and googled every good hot toddy recipe he could find.

He came through with an agave nectar chamomile tea version that gave me real relief from whatever hadn't fully hit me yet.

I slept like an absolute baby that night.

Which, in hindsight, should have told me something was coming.

Masked, Cheese Dip in Hand

Saturday, I could only show up to make the cheese dip.

Masked, and proud of it.

I put lots of love into that cheese dip, but I kept my cooties masked up and out of it, thank you very much.

I wanted to be responsible about not spreading any kind of cooties around a house full of people I loved until I could at least identify what I was dealing with.

So that was my contribution that day:

A good cheese dip, a lot of love, and a responsible distance.

When the Mystery Bug Finally Announced Itself

By the rest of the day, whatever it was announced itself fully.

Fever.

Chills.

And—I will just say it plainly—strange, genuinely feverish dreams involving kittens chewing off my toenails.

Because apparently, in my delirious subconscious, I didn't have toenail clippers available and the kittens took matters into their own paws.

You know you're deep in a fever when the delusions start getting that specific.

I stayed put on the couch, wrapped up in every blanket the Airbnb had to offer, with a space heater parked right at my side.

I became its personal operator.

Flipping it on and off all day depending on whether I was chilling or overheating in that exact moment.

Sometimes just minutes apart.

Fever regulation, apparently, is a full-time job with no breaks and a very specific dress code of blankets.

When the Caregiver Becomes the One Being Cared For

I'd wake up intermittently to a cup of warm tea already waiting on the nightstand.

Or to someone quietly checking in on me.

And not one ounce of judgment about the fact that the healthcare provider in the room was the one keeping her germs to herself for once instead of everyone else's.

I had my mask.

My vitamins.

A fresh box of Kleenex.

And—no doubt about it—a lot of attention.

All I could really do was dream of kittens and sip my ginger shot mixture throughout the day and into the evening, in whatever bed or couch would hold me.

At one point, I could hear the distant sound of "Happy Birthday" being sung.

The warm hum of everyone's conversations drifted from wherever the party had carried on without me.

I wanted to be part of it so badly.

To hear the laughing up close.

To watch my grandbaby blow out the candles.

To just be in the room.

But not badly enough to actually move my body and make the effort.

That's its own strange kind of grief—being close enough to hear the love happening and too sick to go stand in it.

The Ginger Shots That "Saved My Life"

But the finale of that day was the best part.

Once we made it back to the apartment after the party, Jane—my daughter-in-law's mother—had a jar of more ginger shots waiting for me.

Ready to nurse me back to health.

I want to be dramatic about this because it deserves drama:

Those ginger shots saved my life.

I felt the love in them before I felt anything else.

The fact that someone had made them, thought ahead, and had them waiting for me before I even asked.

And then I felt the goodness moving through me, warm and sharp and alive.

I felt myself dodging what I am fully prepared to call the pits of flu hell, even in the middle of a fever full of feline toenail conspiracies.

Sunday, Monday, and More Ginger Juice

Sunday morning, Jane made chorizo and eggs.

Or so I'm assuming.

Because "delicious" is a taste-and-see kind of word, and I mostly experienced it through sound and vapor.

I could hear the pots clanging away in the kitchen and catch the faint, smoky drift of vittles making their way toward me on the couch.

Close enough to smell hope.

Too far gone to actually participate.

I'm choosing to believe it was every bit as good as it smelled.

Sunday and Monday otherwise didn't have much of a story to them.

And honestly, that was the point.

There was no party to miss.

No burgers to smell from another room.

No reason to push myself into anything.

Just more of the ginger juice.

Steady sips throughout both days.

More frequent naps than I'd normally allow myself.

And the slow, unglamorous work of letting my body heal itself.

Permission to Rest Without Guilt

I wasn't dramatically sick anymore.

But I wasn't myself yet either.

I was somewhere in that in-between where you're well enough to be bored and still tired enough to be grateful for the couch.

And grateful for permission to nap in the middle of the day without guilt attached to it.

I kept drinking the ginger juice like it was a job.

In a way, it was.

Soup, an Invitation, and a Flight Home

By the time Tuesday rolled around, Jane had made a beautiful pot of soup for me to enjoy.

And she was brave enough—genuinely brave, given what I'd been hauling around all weekend—to invite me into her own home.

It was wonderful.

I sat there with her soup, feeling more like myself with every spoonful.

By the time I got on the plane to fly home, I had the confidence to actually enjoy the flight instead of dreading it.

I coughed very little the whole way back.

And I've been feeling better and better every day since.

The Art of Receiving

Here's the thing I want to say plainly:

Being down, I don't ever take as a failure.

I looked at my own immune system doing its slow, unglamorous work that whole weekend, and instead of frustration, what I mostly felt was gratitude.

Sure, I wanted to be with my grandkids full speed ahead.

Enjoying everything in the moment, fully present, would have been nice too.

But the family love that was shown to me made me so grateful.

Because I take care of people all the time.

That's simply who I am and much of what I do.

Receiving is the muscle I've never had much reason to use.

To be handed that kind of care instead of giving it made me smile more than it frustrated me.

I didn't resist where I was in the moment.

I just let it happen.

And let myself be the one on the receiving end for once.

Receiving Without Keeping Score

And here's the part that made it especially special.

The people caring for me—Jimmy with his googled hot toddies, Jane with her ginger shots and her soup and her open door—are the family my son married into.

Not people who had known me for decades.

Not people who owed me anything.

Just family, choosing to be family, the very first chance they got.

And giving me the chance to practice something I'm not naturally good at:

Receiving without keeping score.

What a blessing that turned out to be.

Thank you, virus.

You can go now.

I slowed down.

I got poured into, for once, instead of being the one doing all the pouring.

If that's not the art of receiving, I don't know what is.

Nature Is Undersold

That weekend got me thinking about how undersold nature actually is.

And how little most of us—myself included, more often than I'd like to admit—value the nutrients we can get from real food instead of reaching straight for whatever quick fix is closest.

It's not that the quick fixes are evil.

It's that we've gotten so used to reaching past what's actually available to us—

Root.

Herb.

Honey.

Warmth.

Rest.

—that we forget those things were part of how people cared for one another long before there was a pharmacy on every corner.

Remembering My Grandmother Dessa

Sitting there through the worst of it, fever finally starting to break, I thought about my grandmother Dessa.

She had her own cough remedies.

The kind that got made on the stove, not measured out from a bottle.

Passed down not through a pamphlet, but through my mother standing next to her, watching, until she knew it well enough to make it herself and eventually teach it to me.

My mother's hot toddies could put NyQuil to shame.

And I mean that as the highest compliment I know how to give.

There was no marketing behind Dessa's remedies.

No packaging.

No dosage chart.

Just a grandmother who knew, from decades of tending to people she loved, what actually helped.

Old Care, New Tools

I found myself thinking, too, about Jimmy sitting there with his phone.

Googling recipe after recipe until he landed on one worth making.

And about Jane, quietly keeping a jar of ginger shots ready before anyone even asked.

Then following it up days later with a pot of soup and an open door to her own home.

That's not so different from what Dessa was doing generations ago, even if the tools and the timeline have changed.

The impulse is the same one, passed forward in a new shape.

Someone cares enough to go find out what actually helps.

Then makes it with their own hands.

And hands it to you.

Sometimes as a hot toddy googled at midnight.

Sometimes as a jar left waiting on a counter.

Sometimes as an invitation into someone's own home.

Revisiting What We Already Know

I want to write this, and I want it to land as an invitation more than a lecture:

Revisit the old remedies.

Not instead of good medical care when you genuinely need it.

That's not what this is about.

But for the ordinary, garden-variety mystery bug that shows up uninvited in the middle of a mountain getaway, there can be something deeply comforting about the simple things we already know.

A ginger shot made by someone who cares about you.

A hot toddy someone stayed up googling recipes for, just to bring you a little relief.

A pot of soup made days later, once the worst has passed, just so you know you're still being looked after.

A remedy that traveled from your grandmother's kitchen to your mother's hands to yours.

Carrying more than just its ingredients.

Carrying the fact that someone, generations back, paid enough attention to figure out what helped them.

And loved you enough, before you even existed, to pass that knowledge forward.

Sometimes Healing Is Also About Letting Love In

I made it through that weekend.

I got my mountain view.

My grandbaby's birthday.

Destiny's burger sauce.

My family.

My ridiculous amount of gratitude.

And—thanks to Jane's ginger shots, her soup, and a family that still believes in hot toddies—I got to actually be present for almost all of it instead of losing the whole trip to being sick.

I don't think it was just the ginger.

I think it was the whole picture.

Being cared for.

Being handed something made with intention.

Being reminded that the people around you and the natural world around you have both been trying to take care of you, if you're willing to let them.

The Gift of Being Poured Into

What an amazing gift.

The love of family.

Friends.

Nature.

Food.

And the ways they can support us when we're not at our best.

I love my family.

Well—my daughter-in-law's family, who is now my family too.

And I'm grateful, in a way I didn't expect to be, for a weekend that forced me to sit still long enough to finally practice:

The art of receiving.

A Few Questions to Sit With

• What remedy from your own family's history have you quietly stopped reaching for in favor of something faster but less loved?
• Who in your life still makes something—a tonic, a soup, a tea—the old way, and have you asked them to teach you?
• Has someone in your life ever shown care the modern way—searching, researching, gathering what they could find—in a way that still carried the same spirit as an old family remedy?
• What would it look like to trust nature's slower, plainer offerings a little more the next time your body asks for help, while still seeking appropriate medical care when needed?
• If you're someone who is usually the one giving care, how comfortable are you with receiving it—and what would it take to practice that a little more?

--Dr. Rachel